President Trump on Thursday took his largest step so far toward dismantling the Education Department by signing an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to slash its workforce and limit its authority over states’ control of schools.
The president signed the order at a White House event attended by Ms. McMahon and Republican governors, including Gregg Abbott of Texas, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Ron DeSantis of Florida. Mr. Trump was flanked on stage by schoolchildren in uniform sitting at desks.
“Department of Education, we’re going to eliminate it, and everybody knows it’s right, and the Democrats know it’s right,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re not doing well with the world in education.”
Mr. Trump listed statistics that he said prove American education is lagging.
“The United States spends more money on education by far than any other country and spends, likewise, by far, more money per pupil than any other country. It’s not even close,” he said. “Those are two sets you don’t want: the most money spent per pupil, and you’re at the bottom of the list.”
The order directs Ms. McMahon to “facilitate the closure of the Education Department” by using “the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
“The experiment of controlling American education through federal programs and dollars — and the unaccountable bureaucrats those programs and dollars support — has failed our children, our teachers and our families,” the order said.
Democrats and education groups said the move will harm low-income and disabled children.
Sen. Christopher Murphy, Connecticut Democrat and a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, accused Mr. Trump of attempting to dismantle the department “illegally.”
“Trump’s attempt to close the Department of Education has nothing to do with helping our kids learn better or empowering teachers. It’s about making it easier to sell our public schools off to the highest bidder,” Mr. Murphy said in a statement.
Keri Rodrigues Langan, president of the National Parents Union, said without federal oversight, “states will have free rein to lower standards, siphon funds from public schools and dismantle hard-won civil rights protections. The result? A generation of students left unprepared for college, careers and life.”
Evan Stone, co-founder and CEO of Educators for Excellence, called the move “irresponsible” and a “slap in the face to American families and teachers who believe in our public education system.”
Conservatives said the move was critical to getting the federal government out of schools. They pointed to the declining education outcomes in the U.S. compared with the rest of the world.
“The key to improving education is empowering parents and students and reducing the role of Washington bureaucrats,” said Rep. Tim Walberg, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee.
Studies show that American students are falling behind their global peers. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, an international test of math and science skills given to fourth- and eighth-graders, found that American fourth-graders have declined 18 points in math and eighth-graders have declined 27 points since 2019.
The test found that students in 16 other countries performed better than Americans. More U.S. students scored at the lowest level in math than ever before.
“We’re going to be returning education, very simply, back to the states where it belongs. And this is a very popular thing to do, but much more importantly, it’s a commonsense thing to do,” Mr. Trump said. “And it’s going to work.”
Mr. Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the Education Department and his desire to shutter it. On the campaign trail, he argued that the agency has become too focused on promoting leftist social issues and has been controlling policy that is best left to state and local authorities.
Last month, the administration gutted the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on student achievement; canceled grants; laid off dozens of newer, probationary employees; and put dozens more on paid leave.
At the start of Mr. Trump’s second term, the Education Department had about 4,500 employees, making it one of the smallest Cabinet-level agencies. It is responsible for distributing federal financial aid and collecting and disseminating data related to schools.
It also enforces nondiscrimination policies in schools. The money it distributes to schools accounts for less than 10% of the nation’s public school funding, which is driven primarily by state and local taxes.
The Department of Government Efficiency website shows that the Education Department accounts for 0.31% of the federal government’s total salaries.
Although the order doesn’t spell out which steps Ms. McMahon and her team will take to unwind the department, the plan likely includes layoffs, hiring freezes, budget cuts, shuttering certain offices and moving some functions to other agencies.
Project 2025, a governing blueprint proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation, offers some ideas for dismantling the Education Department. It suggests shuffling its programs to other agencies, though most of those moves would require congressional action.
The Treasury Department would assume control of student loans, the Justice Department would handle investigations into education discrimination, and the Labor Department would oversee the compilation of education data, according to Project 2025.
“They will be able to do the same things the Department of Education does, and there is good reason to believe they do it better,” Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute, said of the other agencies. “The people who work at the Treasury Department are finance people, not education people, so it makes sense they handle the student loans.”
Michelle Dimino, director of the education program at Third Way, a liberal advocacy group, warned that transferring the Education Department’s core to other agencies could threaten students who rely on government loans and imperil schools that rely on federal funds to lower the cost of education.
“If we see those types of shifts parceled out to other agencies, that is a process that needs to be done incredibly delicately,” she said. “Any disruption to those services can be financially harmful to student loan borrowers.”
Republicans’ goal of abolishing the Education Department has been discussed since President Carter created the agency in 1979.
Roughly one year after its formation, Ronald Reagan campaigned on a promise to shutter the agency. Once in the White House, however, Reagan could not follow through because of a lack of support in Congress.
The public, especially voters on the right, are dissatisfied with the agency.
Voters expressed frustration with the department’s efforts to forgive student loans, the bungled rollout of the federal financial aid application and the addition of protections that allowed biological males to compete in sports alongside females.
Mr. McCluskey said that even if Mr. Trump cannot completely abolish the Education Department, the executive order will bring the idea out of the fringes of conservative thought into the public mainstream.
“The order is getting more people talking more about it and making it more of a mainstream discussion or position to take, and all of that is very valuable because we need to have a conversation about whether we need to have a Department of Education and whether we are getting anything of value out of it,” he said.
Ms. Dimino cited polls showing that eliminating the Education Department is unpopular with many Americans. She said its functions, such as doling out student loans and providing grants to low-income students, could have a greater impact on people’s everyday lives than other cuts to federal agencies proposed by the Department of Government Efficiency, a Trump administration cost-cutting advisory board.
“The programs it manages are really important, and making sure those programs operate effectively is crucial. Pell grants, student loans — these are things that are very intricately entwined in students’ lives. It is more tangible to Americans than a lot of other DOGE actions,” Ms. Dimino said.
An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll found that 63% of respondents “strongly oppose” closing the Education Department.
Mr. Trump didn’t push to close the Education Department during his first term. Instead, he proposed deep cuts to its budget. Lawmakers rejected those cuts and increased the department’s funding.
In 2023, House conservatives pushed an amendment to abolish the department, but 60 Republicans joined Democrats to defeat the measure.
